Dark Cloud Rising
by Orias
Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle bitter and alone recieves two letters that change his life beyond any recognition. Tom finds himself at Hogwarts and a an almost twisted parody of "The Philosopher's Stone" begns.


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Disclaimer: Please note that the basic characters and ideas on which this story is based is owned by JK Rowling and the rights held by her, her publishers and Warner Brothers cinemas (and a clothes factory in Australia who beat WB in a legal battle over the Harry Potter label, one they have been using on Women's clothes for many years.

I do not profit from these writings, they are for my own and other's enjoyment only. Ignoring the obvious plagiarism and my occasional use of clichés, this story is fairly original and I apologise for any resemblance this may bear to another fan fiction. This is not intentional.

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Reviews/Emails: Reviews are welcomed; serious ones (good and bad) are greeted with interest, non serious ones are greeted happily, and stupid ones posted by people trying to be funny or yell at me are greeted by amusement and/or a shredder.

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Note: The setting of this story should soon become obvious to any familiar with the works of JK Rowling and is merely an attempt to expand on a character whose hinted depth intrigued me.

Dark Cloud Rising

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Creating a Name to Fear

The room was alive with voices, but to the young handsome boy staring out of the window, it was nothing more than the faint humming of the bees, but without the music. Bees moved co-ordinatedly, orderly, they were alive and organised, there was purpose, a music to it: the music of life.

But these people around him, they buzzed like flies; no point, no understanding, no music. They were all so simple, so simple and pointless and worthless.

"Oy! Riddle"

The young boy sighed inwardly, but said nothing.

"Tom-_Marvelous_-sodding-Riddle," yelled the voice as if through a clenched jaw, "are you listening to me?"

"Yes," replied Tom quietly, not turning around.

"Do you realise that some _freak_ has sent you a letter? Addressed in _green_? Do _freaks_ always associate with _faggots_?"

It was all Tom could do to keep himself from leaping from the chair, eleven years he had been alive, eleven years of pointless life and he had never received a letter before, never. Tom slowly stood up and turned around, walking to the source of the drawling voice, a greasy strongly built kid standing by the post on the table.

"Want your letter?" asked the greasy-hared boy, an idiotic glee in his eyes, "You have to answer a _riddle_ first."

The kid guffawed at his own wit and Tom decided to shut up, before a last streak of pride made him reply.

"From you? Not hard."

The slimy kid's eyes bulged as he grabbed Tom by the throat,

"Funny, now tell me, why is it that no matter how many times I swat at you, you always come back? You're like a fly hanging around crap, answer me!"

"What would you like me to say? That I _am_ worthless, that I'm worse than a fly? Or that _if_ I am a fly it's only because of such a plentiful supply of shit?"

Tom got no further as a fist shot into his gut, the other hand of the greasy kid still held Tom by the throat and threw him against the wall. The air knocked from his lungs, he fell to the floor and lay still as several other kids rushed forward in a disturbing childish delight. Feet flew out at him and he was pummelled on the floor, again and again, to his stomach, to his chest, to his legs. Kicks and punches were always, however, below the collar. They pummelled and pummelled at him and he felt as if he was going into a daze, slipping out of his body into a half-asleep state so that he was hardly even feeling the hits any more.

And it continued. He never said sorry, he never asked them to stop; he had said the words and was powerless to stop the reaction and he lay there, almost ready to pass out, taking it.

Withdrawn into himself he faintly felt the kicks stop and a dreamlike voice reverberated around his head "Here, your freak letter, special delivery" and his eyes, slightly glazed over, watched a think envelope drop to the floor in front of him.

Tom reached out and took the letter in his hands before slowly and painfully rising to his feet, his whole body aching. He looked around to see the other kids all sitting on chairs or standing talking, the greasy kid listening to a cheap radio with a friend, no one acting as though anything had happened.

Tom slowly made his way from the room and went into the boy's bathroom, a big communal place like a public toilet to accommodate the many boys that lived at the home. Tom walked over to one of the cubicles which still retained its door (thought the lock was long since gone) and shut himself in.

Carefully he opened the thick parchment envelope, wondering at the emerald green ink.

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HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Armando Dippet

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(Order of Merlin, Second Class, Chief Warlock, Wizenmagot Counsellor, First Advisor to Minister of Magic)

Dear Mr Riddle

We are pleased to inform you that you have secureda place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 3rd September. We await your owl by no later than 31st July.

Yours Sincerely

Albus Dumbledore

Deputy Headmaster

Tom gazed at the letter and took a second sheet of parchment from the envelope and scanned a list of books and items.

A wand? He needed a magic wand? Was this some great elaborate joke?

It just _had_ to be, but the problem was that the more he thought about it… the more he realised that it wouldn't and couldn't be anyone he knew. _Jesus, the closest Luke gets to funny is that "haw-haw" noise the greasy slob makes._

Disbelieving he checked the large envelope and found a further letter enclosed, this one however was written on normal paper, not thick parchment, on the front it read:

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Tom Marvalo Riddle

C/O Furbish and Watts Wizarding Solicitors

C/O Armando Dippet

To be sent ONLY on his acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Tom drew in a breath, he recognised the handwriting, he had only seen it in one other place, but he had seen it many, many times. Out of the jeans pocket where it was pressing into his leg, he took it. It was small, ageing and ragged, but it was his most prized possession, a small battered childhood diary and the only posession of his mother's ever passed to him. He compared the two hands and although this new letter was more uniform and had lost a little of the childish scrawl, it was unmistakably the same.

With trembling hands he opened the eleven-year-old letter.

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My Dearest Tom

This is one of the hardest letters that I am ever going to have to write and there are few other ways of putting this. As I lie here, pregnant with you and just waiting to see you for the first time, I write this. It will be soon, but there have been what the doctors here describe so politely as "complications".

Complications my dearest Tom, which I cannot avoid and - if you are indeed reading this - which I could not solve. There are so many problems involved with a magical birth.

Yes, I said magical.

You will at this time have received a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there is no doubt in my mind that you will have this letter, for as my son you are descended from one of the greatest wizards ever to live and have a place by birthright, but I am confusing you.

I am a witch and am deeply proud of the fact, as you should be as a wizard, for that is what you are. Have you ever felt a strange unexplained power inside you, a difference making you better than all those muggles (non-magical people) around you? Something that set you apart, brought you above them?

That my dear son is the power deep inside of you from the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself. He was one of the greatest wizards ever to have lived and of whom you are a direct descendant. His was a name that was feared and that is a useful thing. As his descendant I have no doubt that you are a parselmouth, meaning you are yourself unique among wizards to be able to speak to snakes and if you have not discovered this fact already, do try it, they are a most fascinating species.

However, I warn you to keep these two things secret, even wizards frown upon some things and there are those idiots and unenlightened fools among our kind who think such wondrous and unique abilities as yours to be wrong or evil.

If you read this now, soon after your eleventh Birthday then I am indeed dead and for that fact I must blame myself.

I had the misfortune to fall in love with a muggle, a man who knew nothing of the wizarding world, a world you will shortly enter. When I became pregnant with you I felt bound to tell him of my powers, but he was so disgusted by my "dreadful abnormality" that he left me and returned to live with his muggle parents.

Your birth in turn has become complicated, these problems could easily have been remedied under magical care, but I foolishly felt that I must go to a muggle hospital to prove to your father that I could live as a muggle for him. I wrote you a letter in case he did not come back, only to be sent to you on your acceptance to Hogwarts, for I did not want to put you through this if you were not accepted, but the thought never really crossed my mind that you would not. If you have this letter then you know now that your father never came, despite my pleas, and because it was a muggle hospital and they had no way of knowing of your other kin, I am very afraid that you will have grown up as a muggle yourself.

Non-magical people, Tom, are weak. Weak, pathetic and they have no will. Nothing can be allowed to disrupt their wonderful "normal" lives and I can see that now, your father loved me, but his dirty non-magical mudblood split us apart. Muggles are beneath us Tom, always remember that. This love I have for your father is my weakness and I have paid for it

Remember Tom; remember your father and that he gave you nothing but his name, Tom Riddle.

Remember me, go to Hogwarts and use the power given you by birth and harness it.

Remember and follow my guidance and you, my son, can become the greatest of them all.

Sarah Purosanguis-Riddle

Tom did nothing for a long time after reading that letter, from a mother he had never known, save from childish scrawling of wishing for a pony and pretending to fly, now he had a letter from her telling him that he was a wizard. What sort of childhood foolery was that?

But…

She knew how he felt. Knew how he felt isolated, knew the feeling of superiority to the, what were they, muggles? That surrounded him. And that feeling, that power inside him TOLD him he was right…

And it was definitely his mother's hand, there was no doubting that, why should she write such a letter on her deathbed to her soon to be orphaned son?

So then it must be true.

As soon as he realised the truth of those two letters in his hands his thoughts writhed once more and new, new ideas rang in his mind.

He had power.

He would lean _magic_, make those pathetic foo-, ha! those pathetic "filthy muggles" fear him. Make them pay for this life that he had lived for eleven years, for the abuse, for the beatings and for the blind eye turned by his "carers". They had no right to live as happily as they did and he had the power in the world, he would avenge the lost life of his mother, taken as a sacrifice of goodwill to his father, to the muggles, avenge them for the lost eleven worthless years, for the hurt he felt inside.

Tears of anger at his mother's wasted death sprang to his eyes, enraged shining shards at the petty world ran down his cheek and he punched the side of the cubicle in his rage, raising new bruises on his hand to cover the old ones. So enraged he was that he did not hear or turn to see the broken door open.

"Bad news Riddle? Poor little Tom"

It was him.

Luke had watched as Tom had left the common room and had awaited Tom's return. When Tom had not come back, he had followed a few minutes later. There was delight in his eyes at the sight of Tom's tears.

"And look, the faggot cries"

"You dirty-blooded fool," yelled Tom with undisguised malice.

"What did you say?" Luke stared incredulously at the beaten boy, daring him to speak back again.

"You heard. You filthy, dirty-blooded muggle."

"You what? You using made up words now as well, you pathetic little kid? Why don't you create some imaginary parents to take you away?"

Tom wasn't really listening any more, he wasn't really seeing any more, the deep feeling of power that he had always felt seemed swelled within him, fed by the anger. His stomach spasmed as his rage threw off it's chains and decided to avenge its bruised body. Tom's fists began to clench involuntarily. He felt ready to release a primeval scream and throw himself bodily at the boy, but the power he released was far worse.

Great black flames leapt up from the floor all around as Tom raised his arms into the air and they burned their way across the off-white tiles. They lapped at Luke's feet , running up his leg and all the while Tom just stood in the silently roaring flames feeling only a slight coolness, like stepping into the flow of a cool stream.

Luke opened his mouth to scream but he could say nothing as the flames worked their way across his body until he was entirely alight and then the flames burnt themselves into nothing.

A pillar of ash in the vague shape of a boy remained in the centre of the room and as the wind from the open window caught it, it dissipated into a cloud and swirled away.

Tom said nothing.

The tiles on which his feet stood were clean and gleaming and the roaring flames had vanished.

"I didn't mean t…"

But he had. He had wished and wanted that act with every fibre of his being and for the first time in his life he felt free. The orphanage had never been a home; it had been a prison. Tom had always lived, simply waiting for his next beating, never in his life _not_ looking over his shoulder or trying to stop his too-quick mouth. That idiot, he had pushed too far… and… Tom now knew what he could do.

And he smiled.

He knew what he could do with those pathetic fools that tried to hurt him again and he wasn't afraid. He had power and it had set him free from the ropes that had bound him for eleven years and he felt exhilarated.


End file.
